Final poll results to be announced Saturday

The final results of Monday’s general election will be known on Saturday morning after the commission completed tallying and verification of results from 285 constituencies on Friday night.

Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) commissioner Yusuf Nzibo said that the announcement had been postponed to allow thorough verification of the final tally by the political party agents to give the process credibility.

“We have decided as a commission to have this matter completed tomorrow (Saturday). We will give political parties time to verify the results before we can declare whether we have a winner or whether it is a run off,” Mr Nzibo said.

He said the commission chairman Mr Ahmed Issack Hassan is expected to make the pronouncement on the election results at 11 am on Saturday.

Earlier, Mr Nzibo run into trouble after he announced three times that Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta had garnered 51,574 in Tiati constituency where registered voters are only 20,574. Mr Kenyattas total was actually 15,574.

A group of Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (Cord) officials who were in the auditorium when Mr Nzibo announced the Tiati results shouted in protest forcing him to apologize for the misreported numbers.

By Friday night it was still unclear whether Mr Kenyatta would get a straight round one win or whether the latest results from five constituencies that were undeclared would trigger a run off.

At 1 am the gap between Mr Odinga and Mr Kenyatta has narrowed with the former's lead standing at 6,035,582 votes over the Cord candidate’s 5,285,771 with results from 285 out of the 291 constituencies declared.

Earlier several diplomats had gathered at the elections centre anticipating the official announcement of the elections results but left after it was announced that event had been postponed.